A growing number of Wall Street banks and businesses have cut ties with President Donald Trump’s campaign and its financial arms, as well as the broader Republican Party, following last week’s riots and insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Financial technology company Stripe stopped processing payments for the Trump campaign, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The person requested anonymity because the decision hasn’t been made public.
The move by Stripe reportedly cuts off Mr. Trump’s fundraising arm from what has been a steady stream of small-dollar donations that are often solicited through emails and text messages.
Stripe did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment.
Also on Monday, American Express and JPMorgan Chase said they would no longer donate to candidates who supported the rhetoric that stoked last week’s insurrection or did not vote to confirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College on December 6.
“Last week’s attempts by some congressional members to subvert the presidential election results and disrupt the peaceful transition of power do not align with our (values),” American Express’ CEO Steve Squeri said in an email to employees.
Citigroup confirmed this week that it is pausing all federal political donations for the first three months of the year.
In a memo to employees sent Friday, Citi’s head of global government affairs Candi Wolff said “we want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law.”
CEOs at Visa and PayPal have also denounced the violence Mr. Trump’s supporters carried out last week, which have now led to two Capitol Police officer deaths.
Several technology companies have clamped down on President Trump, the GOP and other forums that were considered avenues for violent extremism and insurrection. Twitter suspended Mr. Trump from its platform, as did Facebook, last week. The social media company Parler was banned from Apple’s App Store as well as Google’s Play Store, and Amazon cut off Parler from its Amazon Web Services platform.
Online-store platform Shopify also removed Mr. Trump’s campaign merchandise from its platform, saying those web pages violated company policy against sellers promoting violence. Both Trump-oriented merchandise websites — trumpstore.com and shop.donaldjtrump.com — were disabled last week. The Canadian company said in a statement that it “does not tolerate actions that incite violence.”
When active, both Trump online stores offered Make America Great Again hats, Trump 2020 buttons, flags, pennants, T-shirts, bobbleheads and more. That merchandise is still for sale on Amazon.
